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We interview Factor 5 about its involvement with GameCube and its opinion of the console wars.

By IGN Staff

If you're any kind of a Nintendo fan then you probably recognize the name Factor 5. The company has been a partner of the Big N's for many years now. It has created several great N64 titles and has been integral in the design and development of key Nintendo GameCube hardware features. We recently interviewed company president Julian Eggebrecht for an up-to-date history of Factor 5, as well as his thoughts on GameCube, Nintendo's stance in the marketplace, and what the competition may bring to the table in the coming console wars. Following is that interview.

IGNcube: We've done this several times, we know, but go ahead and give us a brief history of Factor 5's start and transition to the US if you would. Just give us a single-paragraph update.

Julian Eggebrecht: Okay. We started out in Germany working on obscure home computers. We began as hackers then got into professional games. We got in contact via the SNES and the Genesis with LucasArts, then in PlayStation times LucasArts asked us if we could come over to the US. We did, and from there we went onto Nintendo 64. We started out with Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and our sound technology caught Nintendo's eye. That's how we got into close contact with the company and it's how MusyX came about.

The rest is pretty much up to date. Since Rogue we did Indy and Naboo together with LucasArts obviously, and the tech demo for Space World.

IGNcube: When you initially debuted MusyX it actually didn't go by that name. Can you elaborate on the change?

Julian: Yes, it was called MoSys, which was a painfully conceived name. We searched for it weeks and weeks and weeks, and we were so proud of it. But then Nintendo shut it down. Our thought at the time was, "Well, I guess they shot it down because of the biblical connection there." We thought that perhaps it wasn't politically correct. At that time, of course, we didn't know about MoSys RAM [laughs]. Later on it became clear that they shut us down because the GameCube hardware team had probably already chosen the name MoSys for its RAM technology.

IGNcube: Interesting coincidence.

Julian: Oh, absolutely -- a bizarre coincidence.

IGNcube: So how big is Factor 5 now in terms of employees?

Julian: Right now we're at exactly 22 people.

IGNcube: And would you say that you're growing?

Julian: Well, we want to grow to 30, but it pretty much maxes out there because we want to stay small, as opposed to say what Rare did when it suddenly went up to 250. All of the owners here at Factor 5 like to be very much involved with the game-making process and if you grow too big you cannot be as involved with the process anymore. Plus I think you can keep the quality high if you stay small.

IGNcube: How many Germans work at the company versus Americans?

Julian: We're multi-national completely. We've got 10 Germans, but we've also got a New Zealander, Norwegian, Canadian, a Turkish artist -- basically people from all over the world. And also a couple of Americans, yes.

IGNcube: Did any of you have any problems leaving behind Germany to move to the US?

Julian: You've got that first year where it's pretty hard. You don't feel at home right away. But I think after that first year that feeling goes away, especially after you build a circle of friends. I mean, Peer should be able to relate to that.

IGNcube: Yeah, Peer doesn't have the friends yet but he's working on it.

[Laughter]

IGNcube: Second-party Silicon Knights likens its company to a guild. Do you have any of your own internal philosophies for Factor 5?

Julian: We take very, very long when people apply to actually select a new member to the group. The 22 people working at Factor 5 today have been in a sense selected over 10 years. On the other hand, we also feel that we really have top talent and that makes up for quite a bit of the efficiency to deliver on time and to deliver good products.

IGNcube: How do you have your internal teams split up now?

Julian: It's a weird approach because we've got a bunch of people working on specific projects for awhile, but we also mix and match quite a bit. So, for example, everybody chipped in during the end of the development cycle for Naboo. And even Indy, which had a much smaller core team, got help from others when it was needed.

We of course have our dedicated members. Certain programmers and graphics artists are just working on one project while others are just working on the other project. But if somebody is in need the whole company jumps in and helps.

IGNcube: In addition to people working on tools like MusyX, how many titles can Factor 5 support at the same time?

Julian: Right now, two -- two of the big ones. If we were doing handheld games, let's say AGB, we could do more because you can do those with a staff of just two or three people. But with the big ones we can just do two and that because we're very efficient. Otherwise it would be a real stretch.

IGNcube: What attracted you to the Nintendo 64 in the first place? The system looked really tough to develop for so why did you guys go for it?

Julian: It didn't. If you remember back in 1995, did it really look tough to develop for?

IGNcube: Good point.

Julian: First of all, quite frankly, we also believed the hype, which was going around there because nobody had information. I mean, if you think GameCube is closely guarded, forget about it. Nintendo 64 in 1995 was so closely guarded that although we were working with LucasArts and knew that it was creating Shadows of the Empire, we nevertheless got no information on it. We had heard about the Hoth level being up and running and we heard magical numbers about what the hardware could do, but there was nothing firm in terms of information. In fact, only when Ballblazer Champions was finished and we were to jump onto N64 did we get final documentation and everything.

Looking at Shadows of the Empire when it was in development we immediately saw some of the hardware problems. So even before we got the documentation there were some things that we questioned coming from PlayStation development, where polygon amounts weren't so much of a problem and different transparency effects were possible. But there were some advantages too. For example, we hated loading time on PlayStation -- really hated it, so the cartridge was attractive there.

We couldn't believe how bad the textures were on a lot of the early N64 games and we said, "Well, there should be a way around it." And actually reading the documentation, it wasn't all that hard to find a way around it.

IGNcube: Did you have to fight to get access to microcode?

Julian: No, actually we wouldn't even have asked for it because at the time it seemed like something scary and nobody even talked about it. But actually, if I remember correctly, at the time we were talking to the Shadows of the Empire team - they of course knew about the microcode, and had some initial discussions about it. So we latched onto that basically and said, "We could do a lot with it." We knew about the landscape engine and when we heard what the microcode was really doing our programmers thought that if we could rewrite it, we could make a much better landscape engine. But we didn't have to fight much really -- we just had to justify it to Nintendo.

IGNcube: One of the things that all of your N64 games have in common is that they all offer an optional high-resolution mode. How did that all come about?

Julian: Well, Naboo and Indy don't offer you an optional high-resolution mode -- if you have a 4MB Expansion Pak they simply run in high-resolution.

IGNcube: True, but if you don't have one they revert to low-resolution.

Julian: Yeah. But there is a certain distinction because Indy and Naboo were actually developed with high-resolution in mind. We didn't even think about low-resolution -- that didn't come until much later in the development cycle.

On Rogue it was something completely different because back then there was this funny story that Acclaim broke to the press on Turok 2 that there was something like the Expansion Pak in existence. I remember it was the summer of 1998 and Rogue was pretty far along. We never tried out high-resolution mode -- what an absurd idea on Nintendo 64. So basically we read that news story on Next-Generation Online, and I think it was David Dienstbier [Turok series project leader] who said, "We're running with this Mem Pak in high-res and it looks so much better so Nintendo should really bring it out." We of course were using the 4MBs because for debugging it was very useful, but we never tried it for anything else because we always assumed we wouldn't have it in the end. We basically just switched Rogue into high-resolution and were amazed at how decent the framerate still was. We thought, "Hmm. That's really interesting. The Nintendo 64 isn't all that bad handling it." At that moment the team was really happy because suddenly everything looked as good as it should look [laughs].

We immediately latched onto it and said to Nintendo, "Please. Acclaim wants it for Turok 2. And Rogue -- look at it. The game really could benefit from it and everything is running at a good framerate. So what's the big deal? Do it. We can do optimizations with it and get it even better." So there was a huge debate going back and forth between Nintendo, Acclaim, LucasArts and so on, and at one point Nintendo simply made the decision that it would launch it as an accessory because it had the two major holiday titles to come out with it.

What was very funny to us was that in the end Rogue had the best framerate of all these games, even Turok 2. Because truthfully, Rogue was never really designed for high-resolution, we just employed a few techniques that were probably useless in low-resolution anyway, but came to fruition in high-res.

On GameCube

IGNcube: Now switching gears -- we know what attracted you to Nintendo 64, but what about GameCube?

Julian: Well, with GameCube the immediate attraction was of course that we were on from day one. So that was very tempting because we got insides into the hardware which, even if a company is completely open, you simply have to acquire later in a much shorter time frame and under much more time constraints. If it's partly your baby and you're nurturing it along a little bit then you've got a much better start on it. It also puts bigger pressure on you because of course you should have something at launch.

IGNcube: When you say that you were involved, exactly how did that come about?

Julian: How it came about was basically MusyX. When we had MusyX done for Nintendo 64 we pitched it to Nintendo for a very long time and finally sold them on it when we did the Game Boy version. At that point somebody in the early GameCube team must have evaluated MusyX too and at that point they simply called us and said, "We shouldn't only talk about N64 and Game Boy, but let's also talk about our upcoming console." At that point we of course had to sign the ugliest NDAs on the planet [laughs]. And then we get involved with the whole hardware and discussions started.

A lot of Flipper's [ArtX-designed graphics hardware] features were pretty much in place at that time, or at least thought out, CPU discussions were pretty far along and the audio was just starting. So basically we began pitching ideas back and forth and Nintendo said, "Okay, this might be possible for the hardware. How could you adapt MusyX for it?"

IGNcube: When did that take place?

Julian: Late 1998.

IGNcube: Did you ever deal with NCL?

Julian: Not much. We had contact with NOA but there weren't too many people involved at the time. There is a Division at NOA called Nintendo Technology, which is under Howard Cheng, who is also one of the fathers of the hardware. We were in contact most of the time with Howard's group and a little bit with Jim Merrick's developer group. Probably Mr. Takeda at NCL and Howard Cheng were the two people who had to travel back and forth between Japan and the US the most.

IGNcube: You've done a lot of tool design for Nintendo, but we haven't seen a Factor 5 true second-party title. Is that going to happen again?

Julian: Well, if Nintendo likes our upcoming games that would be nice, let's put it that way [laughs]. So of course we would love to be second-party published.

IGNcube: How would you describe your relationship with LucasArts bearing your ties with Nintendo in mind?

Julian: Well, we've got the older, still closer ties with LucasArts. We're very, very tied and closely related with the technology team on GameCube, but on the other hand the rest of NOA we don't have that long-standing ties with. With LucasArts we're working on a daily basis.

IGNcube: You're making Thornado. You made a Star Wars "tech demo." So you do work independently of LucasArts too, as a third-party?

Julian: Yes. LucasArts is very supportive if we do work with them, but on the other hand so long as it doesn't influence their products they don't really discourage us from doing anything else.

IGNcube: Your GameCube Star Wars Rogue Squadron "technology demo" -- when the video was shown at Space World, how did that come about?

Julian: Well, we wanted to do demos on GameCube as soon as the real development hardware arrived. We promised Nintendo and LucasArts that we could really finish the demo in the time-frame and luckily both of them went for it and gave the go-ahead. Everybody was skeptical that we could pull it off in time of course, but we ultimately did it and I think everybody was pretty happy with it. Nintendo was very supportive and LucasArts of course made it happen. I was surprised that in the end ours together with some bits from EAD and Rare was almost the only stuff at Spaceworld really running on the hardware.

IGNcube: How long did it take to put the demo together and how tough was it to get everything to run on the system?

Julian: Well we had done a lot of theoretical work. There has been this magical number of 19 days floating around, but that's not totally true. On the real hardware, yes it was only 19 days, but we had been working with the prototype development kits that just simulated the system for almost half a year at that point. We tried to really stick to everything so that when the real development kit came around everything only took a couple of days to get up and running on it.

And there is lots of old technology in there. In that sense it really is just a technical demo. I mean, we didn't do a new game or anything, it really is just a technical demo.

IGNcube: What effects did you not have implemented in the demo that the GameCube could easily do?

Julian: Tons. Tons. I mean, in the demo you don't see any bump-mapping, for example. GameCube and Xbox could do all of these effects and a lot more. The demo is really base level. Of course all of the lasers you see are real-time lights, but the surface of the Death Star is just lit by one directional light and that's about it. Real games for the system will look a lot better.

IGNcube: What's your take on the next-generation console wars?

Julian: PS2 we have to see. It seems to be a very weird beast in terms of acceptance as a games machine, at least in Japan. Here in the US it's a little too fresh to see how it's going to work out. Between Xbox and GameCube, one of the dangers that Nintendo faces is that they're going to be stuck in the market they're in right now, which is the child's market. That is a big fear I have. They have to be very careful about selecting certain adult titles so that they don't get stuck in that market. And Xbox, of course, is clearly a direct contender against PlayStation 2 -- it targets the exact same market. One of the things is, and you've seen it with Internet Explorer, Microsoft is very, very determined to break into the market.

IGNcube: If you had a choice, which system would you develop for, GameCube or Xbox?

Julian: Both. [Laughs]

IGNcube: What advantages does GameCube have over Xbox and vice-versa?

Julian: Well, with Xbox, quite realistically there still isn't any final hardware so it's kind of an unfair comparison. But let's say most of it pans out as Microsoft says it will. At that point GameCube has more texturing abilities plus most probably a higher fill-rate and Xbox has the hard drive on the other hand. Quite frankly, when it really comes to the looks of games, our prediction is that if Microsoft delivers what it promises, you almost won't be able to tell the difference between the two machines.

IGNcube: What about GameCube and Xbox versus PS2?

Julian: They will look significantly better. Things like bump-mapping and several texture stages, which you can do, make both Xbox and GameCube extremely strong versus PS2. Because with PS2 you always have to use multi-pass rendering and that is a big problem. It has a very basic graphics chip. The system can pump out enormous amounts of polygons if fed right by the Vector Units, but on the other hand can do that too. PS2 has a very high fill-rate, which GameCube also has and Xbox hopefully will have. But it doesn't have the multi-texturing or texture compression and that's going to make a big difference.

GameCube and Xbox will also look very similar because they both have the same texture compression on chip -- they both use S3TC.

IGNcube: Let's say we jumped ahead two years from now. Where do you see the market?

Julian: [Laughs] I wouldn't give out any predictions. It's not like the early 90s when you could predict things like these relatively easily. One personal scenario is that Nintendo takes over the world and Microsoft fails terribly and Sony goes back to being just an electronics company. Of course, that's what Nintendo would love. But on the other hand, Microsoft might pose a serious threat to Sony, Nintendo might not have a big enough success with GameCube as they might hope and they might just be a handheld company in five years. These are all possible scenarios.

IGNcube: You forgot about Sega.

Julian: Sega? Well, no -- I think it's time for Sega to move on and be a software developer. I love the Dreamcast, but it's a shame that with all of its great games the hardware has so many problems, which clearly hints at the fact that Sega at this point isn't able anymore to be hardware player. With these games, how can the hardware fail? That's the problem. It means that Sega had the funds to put together a machine, but they couldn't market it anymore. They're simply isn't enough money behind them anymore and if you want to be a player in the hardware market you had better have the really, really big money. I just don't see it happening for Sega.

IGNcube: What games are you most looking forward to?

Julian: Hopefully Miyamoto is going to turn that "technology demo" into a game -- the Luigi one. The Zelda one would be too much hope here as it's probably going to take them awhile. I'm also really looking forward to the Wave Race sequel because I love the original. What else? A real-time Final Fantasy would excite me so I'm hoping that Square, on whatever platform, is finally going to switch over to real-time. I'm not saying Square might switch fronts here. We'll have to see about that. But especially on GameCube and Xbox, Square could get very close to a pre-rendered look in real-time.

IGNcube: Speaking of which, what's your stance on pre-rendered versus real-time in the next-generation. Will you go with pre-rendered scenes in your coming games?

Julian: Most probably not, no. What we all don't really like is that break from the look in the game and the cut-scene. If it's an intro sequence though -- let's say you wanted to do really freaky 2D layering -- sure, then it's perfect to use FMV for it because it would just be a pain to do it in real-time and there'd be no point to it. But if you have something where you go directly from gameplay into a story element that story element should ideally be real-time.

IGNcube: So if you're not going to do real-time, what are you going to fill the 1.5GB discs with?

Julian: Well, you can do a lot of voice at very high quality. All of these Star Wars things, the radio chatter and stuff don't sound very good but they don't have to sound very good -- that's one of the reasons why they compress so well. If you actually have two people talking to each other you should have much higher audio quality so at that point it's going to fill up a lot quicker. In addition, if you have elaborate 2Dish sequences -- nice titles, endings, whatever -- it's going to fill up.

IGNcube: Where do you see Factor 5 in three or four years?

Julian: I haven't got a clue yet. That depends massively on the outcome of the next hardware race. As you guys pointed out in your editorial, we are not a Nintendo second-party. And although we are associated with Nintendo in the pure technology part, we really aren't in the content part. Since we're mostly a content provider, in the end that's really going to drive the direction of the company. So in that sense if we get closer to Nintendo -- fine. If we get closer to somebody else -- well, that might be the case too.

IGNcube: You said that with Nintendo 64 you had several concerns. What about with GameCube? Have all of your complaints been met with the new hardware?

Julian: Yes. Absolutely. We can't really complain about any aspect. Oh yeah, of course we could complain that the RAM could be bigger, but you can complain about that on any and every machine under the sun. I mean, a good example would be, if you compared it to Xbox which has a little more RAM, Xbox's audio format, on the other hand, is much more memory intensive than GameCube's so in the end they pretty much even out once again. So far all of these systems you can always complain about the memory.

IGNcube: If Nintendo offered you the chance to become a second-party, would you do it?

Julian: At this point, I don't know [laughs]. Tough question. It would be a toughie in terms of our relationship with LucasArts because we are very, very happy with the company and they are just around the corner. Nintendo is in Seattle. Plus LucasArts is moving more into original products again so that's also tempting. I really don't know.

IGNcube: Would you consider Thornado your "break out" game? The title that truly showcases what Factor 5 is capable of?

Julian: I would hope so. On the other hand, first let us finish the game. But if it could establish that we're not just the "Star Wars guys" that would be very nice. That's one of the things that's great, but is also a bit of a curse. We'd like to show that we can recreate someone else's universe great, but that we can also create our own stuff too.

IGNcube: What can we expect from Factor 5 at E3?

Julian: Uh... something. Games on game platforms [laughs].

IGNcube: Wow -- that's pretty specific stuff.

Julian: Yeah, that's pretty specific isn't it?

IGNcube: On one game platform or on more?

Julian: Uh... I don't know yet.

IGNcube: What can we expect of Thornado in the future?

Julian: Hopefully something at E3. Pretty much definitely something at E3. But even there, especially with Thornado, the platform choice comes down to -- well, if one of the large players wants to do the title it will very quickly become a single platform game. On the other hand, if it's a third-party it might be a multi-platform game.

IGNcube: Right. We talked about it in the editorial, again. Well, we begged Nintendo, actually. It wasn't pretty.

Julian: Well, yes, but that's pretty much in Nintendo's court. We would be happy because of course one platform is always easier than several platforms, but we certainly don't mind making it for several platforms.

IGNcube: Even on PS2?

Julian: Okay, let's limit the several platforms to GameCube and Xbox. No, of course we could do PS2 but it would be probably a rather painful path to do it on that.

IGNcube: What's the biggest misconception about GameCube that you'd like to clear up?

Julian: Well, first of all that there aren't any development kits because by now, magically enough, there are plenty of development kits.

Secondly, I really hope that it's not going to turn into a kid's machine. But rather that, in fact, it's going to bring back Nintendo into the mainstream, but that's really in Nintendo's hands. I've read EA's statements, of course, that they are thinking that Nintendo will survive and probably prosper. The question is will they prosper as a company catering to all ages or as one capitalizing on a niche, and I really don't hope that the second one happens.

IGNcube: Nintendo's George Harrison recently commented that Nintendo can no longer afford not to have a presence in the older market -- at least in the US.

Julian: Yes, but they shouldn't only realize that, they should also act by their word, which means they have to court more of the older skewing developers and I think that's where Nintendo has to do a little more of its homework.

IGNcube: Do you think some of the second-parties will fill some of that gap?

Julian: Some of that gap, of course. Silicon Knights tend to work in that direction. But it's not only two, three or four games, but for an older audience with more money to dispose it's also very important that you have a broad range. The choice has to be there and that won't come from the second-parties. That classically is not the job of a second-party, but rather to deliver the A++ titles. So the second and first-party titles are, in my mind, the backbone, but there has to be everything else -- the third parties, and that's where Nintendo has to work.

IGNcube: What are your predictions for E3 2001?

Julian: For E3, wow. It's going to be a tough fight because Sony will have great titles. I'm looking forward to a lot of the software that hasn't been shown yet at all because there should be some really cool stuff there.

IGNcube: Like the Naughty Dog one, for example?

Julian: Yeah, the Naughty Dog one. Jason Rubin [Naughty Dog president] is always talking so highly of his game so I finally want to see it.

[Laughter all around]

But on the other hand compared to some other developers who recently switched platforms I actually believe Jason that they're going to do something pretty cool.

Secondly, I want to see what Microsoft has in terms of lineup. They're going to have a tremendous amount of titles, but are they also going to have the standout games that Nintendo will have? Plus - they better have some real hardware then. And on the Nintendo side it's the other way around. I haven't got any doubts that Nintendo will have a few absolutely standout games with which they can probably do the whole launch just like they did with N64. But they need to have the other games too, at least in certain stages of development.

Julian: First of all, it's bigger than the Dreamcast and nobody ever complained about that. So just to put it into perspective, on a Dreamcast disc you've got 1.2GBs and on a GameCube one you've got almost 1.6GBs. It really isn't a problem. And nobody on PS2 is using the DVD now, though I haven't got any doubts that Square will probably fill it up -- and probably several of them [laughs]. But I think that 1.6GBs is enough -- it just isn't a problem.

What I really like about the format is its proprietary design. Both Sony and Microsoft may have a big problem with DVD piracy and I think that Nintendo is completely avoiding that with a custom format. If they don't play it out as a leverage thing against third-parties to have higher prices everything is fine. If they do that I think that would be a huge mistake and immediately put them into the niche.

IGNcube: What would you say to readers interested in what Factor 5 has planned?

Julian: Wait for E3. At E3 a lot will pan out. We have to be vague at this point. How the whole platform thing pans out, let's wait for E3. I hope that Nintendo gets a little more open with information but you never know.

IGNcube: Yeah, so do we.

Julian: [Laughs] Yeah, you guys probably more than I.

IGNcube will have a full Factor 5 developer profile posted online soon.